


This is not a story about clowns.

by Keter



Category: Creepypasta - Fandom
Genre: Carnival, Fair, Gen, Scary, Skeletons, Spooky, killer clowns
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-10-16
Updated: 2016-10-16
Packaged: 2018-08-22 18:57:04
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,038
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8296541
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Keter/pseuds/Keter
Summary: An attempt at a creepypasta based on a dream I had.





	

Halloween is approaching, everybody! Time to take those skeletons out of your closet, hang them in your windows, and hope they scare off all those killer clowns wandering your street! You’ve heard about them, right? People with nothing better to do, dressing up and setting out to scare innocent people driving or walking by? They’d probably make great story material if you happened to run across one.

Yeah, I kinda wish _this_ story was about an experience like that. I mean, the setting had so much potential. We were at a fair and everything. There were clowns _everywhere_! I keep thinking to myself -- what if one of those clowns had scared Lucas and me right from the start? What if we’d gotten so spooked that we just decided to go home? What if something, _anything_ , had convinced us to leave the fair and drive back home without ever having stepped within 100 feet of that goddamned _coffin?_  

Well. I know what-ifs aren’t going to change anything. They aren’t going to change the fact that we didn’t go home. They aren’t going to change the fact that we _did_ see that coffin. And they aren’t going to change the fact that I’m going to have to figure out _something_ to tell Lucas’s parents when their son doesn’t come back from a weekend spent at his friend’s house. I have about a day and a half to figure something out. I’m still processing what even _happened_ yesterday. You think I’m taking this well? People like me will understand -- when you’ve been through enough, sometimes the only way you can deal with stuff like this is to turn everything into a joke. Kinda like a clown. Ha ha. But this isn’t a story about clowns.

It’s a story about yesterday, about a fair that me and my best friend Lucas had been hyped to go to for at least a week. There were already all kinds of spooky attractions advertised -- haunted indoor roller coasters, haunted houses, those kinds of things -- and Lucas and I were adrenaline junkies. If we could get in a good scare, it would make the 35 dollar admission -- _apiece_ \-- absolutely worth it. Expensive, yeah, but this was _always_ a good fair. Like, _unbelievably_ good. You’d think it was a little amusement park if you went. I would have recommended it to you any other day, but now… I don’t even want to think about it. If I knew that I had potentially sent any of you in the direction of that _coffin_ … No. No. Let’s just move on. Let’s get to the actual story. I know you’re probably all dying for it by now.

We got in. We rode the rides. The haunted house was spoiled for us by the group we were with -- the boisterous friend group that keeps making fun of everything and harassing the workers -- you know their type, right? I hope you don’t. It’s hard to enjoy some potential scares when everyone around you is shouting insults at the workers and critiquing every last spiderweb. I don’t know how they didn’t get kicked out, honestly. Those employees must have had the patience of saints. But Lucas and I didn’t, and once we were out of the haunted house we agreed that the whole experience had essentially been ruined for us. Running through it again, even with a good group, wouldn’t be worth it. We’d already seen all the scares for that year. All there was to do was to hope the next attraction would go a bit more smoothly.

And it did! Things popping out of walls and loud sudden noises, when combined with the gut-wrenching thrill of a coaster, make for the peak heart rate of a lifetime. We got off the coaster laughing giddily and holding each other up, heading towards the refreshment stalls. We were really enjoying ourselves, and enjoying the thought of some corndogs and soda to help ease the shaking out of our knees. There was a stall owner we were real friendly with who made these absolutely monstrous corndogs that were over a foot long. We bought from her every time we visited the fair, and she remembered our faces and just how to make our dogs. Lucas liked all kinds of stuff on his -- relish, mayonnaise, some weird salsa-looking stuff, and just whatever else the vendor had with her. I liked mine just with ketchup, and maybe some mustard to dip it in if I was feeling spicy, but I liked the batter just a little undercooked. It was soft and just a little bit gooey, and it was just as enjoyable to take that first bite into as always when I watched Lucas wander off towards the coffin.

We’d just sat down at some cheap tables when he’d first seen it. It was standing in between two food stalls, which instantly made it stand out. It was nine or ten feet tall and appeared to be made out of rosewood, but the artificial shine on it gave it away as just being patterned plastic. There were cartoonish decals all over it of various Halloween motifs -- skulls and bats, a full moon. _HAPPY HALLOWEEN!_ read giant letters in Creeper font plastered on its front. Spoopy and all, but nothing really explaining what it was there for. Maybe it was just a decoration. But Lucas was curious.

“Look, I’ve gotta check it out,” he’d said. When I’d asked him if he didn’t want to eat first, he insisted that he wouldn’t mind the corndog getting a couple degrees colder while he just went to _look_ at the thing. I’d rolled my eyes but let him go because I knew that once he was set on something, he was set. I didn’t know at the time that I had just inadvertently killed him.

I… _hope_ he’s dead, anyway.

I remember watching him stand there, arms crossed, in front of the coffin. There were people walking back and forth around him and the coffin, giving them a strange berth but not seeming to notice either of them. They were walking so naturally, and not as if they were avoiding anything. That should’ve been the real clue that something was wrong and I should have _done_ something about it. But I… I just sat there and ate. And watched. Like it was a movie. Like it was some surreal video I was watching, and not my best friend.

I watched his shoulders shake as he began to laugh. I could hear him a little, over the crowds. He wasn’t _too_ far away. And he kept laughing. He dropped his arms and got closer to the coffin, looking up at it. _Was there some kind of comedian inside?_ I wondered to myself. _Must be a real funny guy._

He just kept laughing. I squinted, but couldn’t make out any speakers on the coffin. _Eh, there could be speakers on the sides or back,_ I reasoned. I shrugged that little detail off and shoved a few more bites of the corndog in my face, glancing at Lucas’s. It had to be getting cold by now. I looked back at my friend. He was now doubled over, holding his sides with an arm, the other hand leaning against the coffin. It was almost kind of tempting to go over there and see what all that was about, but my food was so good and my ass was so lazy. I decided I would wait till either I was done eating and take Lucas his food or wait until he came back so I could ask him what was so funny.

He was on his knees now, one hand still on the coffin, his body still shaking with laughter. If I couldn’t’ve heard him laughing, I might’ve thought that he was mourning some kitschy aunt. I thought about the speakers again, for some reason; why didn’t my brain want to let that question go?

I sighed, but wondered. Why could I hear Lucas, but not whoever was talking? Fair attraction speakers were _loud._ They had to be, to be heard above the noise. I… felt a bit uneasy. I could hear several other attractions from where I sat in the middle of the food plaza. But not this one. Apparently, that was the last straw to my nerve. I stood up, and that was when the coffin swung open.

Not quickly. But Lucas jumped to his feet anyway, and I was frozen in place. The coffin lid opened with the kind of slowness that you’d think would be accompanied by a heavy _creak_ , but there was still no sound from the attraction. Plenty of sound all around -- people, speakers, toys. But a vacuum of noise where the coffin stood. I just wish the coffin itself had been just as empty.

I only saw it for 20-30 seconds tops, but so much as seeing what was inside felt like it drained 15 years from my life. I wish it had taken the rest of them, because then I wouldn’t have to deal now with what happened next.

It was a tall humanoid creature with smooth skin the color of fresh flesh after you scrub off all your dead skin. It took up the entire height of the coffin with arms and legs just a tad too long, but it looked skinny, almost emaciated, with a bloated stomach. In place of a face, it just had a black hole with seemingly no end or contents. It could have been a flat black surface, for all I knew. But I know now. I know that it was a hole.

Lucas was just standing there looking up at it, unmoving. He wasn’t laughing anymore, but he wasn’t running away, either. At least he had noticed the creature -- no one else had, because I doubt they were all just ignoring what was happening in broad daylight. They just kept walking around him, even as he was lifted up, the creature’s hands pinning his arms to his torso, its head leaning down. Its arms raising him higher, his head disappearing into the black void. His shoulders and torso disappearing into the black void. His abdomen and legs and feet, as the creature readjusted its grip, disappearing into the black void. He never screamed or struggled. He was just gone. The creature put its arms down. The coffin closed. The mysterious berth that the coffin had been given disappeared, and traffic resumed flowing normally.

I didn’t stop running until I was in my car, and I didn’t have a single coherent thought until I was halfway home, and that thought was, verbatim, that _No one will believe me._

And then, instead of calling the police or Lucas’s parents, I went to sleep for a gross amount of hours, hoping with the last shred of hope I had that I would just wake up from that awful dream. Surprise, but when I woke up, my friend was still gone and I was faced with the realization that I had very little time left to figure out… _anything_.

You think I’m dumb for doing that? Crazy, maybe -- I’ve been diagnosed, but only with anxiety, and anxiety doesn’t make your friends disappear -- but I’m not dumb, and I _knew_ no one would believe me. A story like that? Next stop, a drug screen and a courthouse and a mental ward. I _know_ what I saw. It couldn’t’ve been a trick. Right? No. It was real. It was all too real, and still real, even as I type this. I can’t get it out of my head. I can’t stop watching him disappear, over and over, sometimes with blissful quickness and sometimes with excruciating slowness. I just have to get it out. I have to deal with it somehow, probably before I’m taken into custody for being a murder suspect or something. Just. What was that? What can I do? I’ve never felt so helpless in my life. Does anyone… have anything to say on this? On what I saw? On what to do?

Maybe I should just… seek out one of those killer clowns, and hope they’ll take care of the rest. Right? Pfft.


End file.
